MINECRAFT

[Guldylohx]

I'm going to continue hosting the server, following Laterna's example. I'll try to turn it on when I wake up, around 7:30am PST and run it until midnight PST most days. Even if nobody logs on, it's a nice gesture eh?

[Kelaan]

Should I mine where I sleep? (figuratively, at least)

I'm only a few (8-ish?) hours in. I have a mostly-safe cave, and have mined enough iron that I have made some iron tools. (My iron ore income is slow enough that I'm thinking I may still use stone, since the materials are so plentiful.) However, I am working on a couple of things that seem mutually exclusive.

On the one hand, I want to terraform the hills and stuff around me, so that I can get raw materials to build a house or other landmark, since navigating home is sometimes confusing. The more familiar I get with the area around me, and build some roads and stairs, the better.

On the other hand, I want to have something to do at night time. I've spent a TON of time delving underground behind my cave. In my cave, really, as I've basically been digging out any dirt I see, and finding/exploring/LIGHTING the tunnels that I'm finding. What should I do with this area? I feel like I COULD effectively hollow out a giant mine connected to my hobbit hole, perhaps making a tree farm or something. Is that safe to do? (I had a skeleton spawn at one point and I'm still not sure where, as I thought I'd lit everything well.) Is it better to separate my mining area from my living space more completely?

I found an underground lake. What should I do with it? I kindof want to keep it until such time as I have buckets to get water sources (does that work in survival? Am I misunderstanding how buckets and Sources work?), but have been contemplating trying to put a Cobblestone lining around the bottom of it, so that when I am mining around the lake, I don't accidentally break it.

I'm not sure if my desire to clear the volume out is irrational OCD, or a rational desire to make sure that nothing bad spawns near me, along with a fulfilment of my needs (wants) for more metals. I already seem to have more coal than I know what to do with (and with wood being plentiful, I could make Charcoal, too).

I feel like I want to build a large spiral staircase to The Lower Levels, but of course that always gets interrupted by the meandering caves that I find connected to it.

What are the second and third things you do when starting in a world? (Assuming first things are making fire/shelter/torches/tools.)

[Guldylohx]

I like to stick with stone tools as well, considering how "cheap" they are to craft.

As for the tree farm, you only really need space for 5 trees or so. Assuming you take the time to set up a mob grinder, you'll have more than enough bones for bonemeal to force-grow your trees whenever you run low on lumber.

For the skeleton, check the walls and ceiling of your caves. Dark openings to further sections could be the culprit. Or rearrange your torches for more overlap of light. Separating your living and mining areas is entirely your preference. I keep mine well separated by 50+ blocks of height, the bottom floor of my mob grinder, and an iron door.

I tend to keep my underground lakes and renovate them into indoor pools. Usually complete with lava-heated hot tubs
The water source tiles will generate in 1-block deep areas that are adjacent to 2 or more source tiles. Corners don't count. And it has to be 1-block deep, or the source tile won't generate.

What sort of volume are you talking about? Everything or a certain amount? Just keep in mind that monsters can't spawn on walls/ceilings so it's the floors that need lit up. This also means that the more floor space you have, the more light sources you need.

I use my coal/charcoal to smelt lots of smoothstone and glass. Even when I'm not actively building anything I'll toss a stack in every time I remember, to build up a stockpile for later.

Don't feel bad about exploring the caves. Natural caves are the most plentiful source of exposed resources in the game. Take everything you can get.

As for the second and third things I do, one would have to be expand my living space to my aesthetic whim, and the other would be build a wheat farm. After I've finished those I dive headlong into all things underground.

[Kelaan]

Assuming you take the time to set up a mob grinder, you'll have more than enough bones for bonemeal to force-grow your trees whenever you run low on lumber.

Is a mob grinder something I can build with limited starting resources, or would I need to use console commands to give me resources? (I want to avoid doing that.)

As for the second and third things I do, one would have to be expand my living space to my aesthetic whim, and the other would be build a wheat farm. After I've finished those I dive headlong into all things underground.

Why do you build a wheat farm? (/goes to read Minecraftwiki later...)

Clearing out the warren of connected caves near my crafing bench and materials stockpile has left me with a nice open square space, which is really helping with navigation. Thanks for the tip about lighting the floor - I think I'm OK now. I found the (closed off) dark pocket with mobs, too, that were making spider-spawning noises. I found a nice deep hole in the floor which goes down more abruptly than I'd like to deal with right now (until I can cut a spiral staircase in it), so I floor'ed it off (and put torches on the other side).

Right now I have a shit-ton of dirt and cobblestone. I'm planning to use cobblestone to prop up the (mostly decorative, also torch-bearing) pillars in my hobbit-hole ("house" isn't really truthful), and I use dirt for scaffolding stuff. I've made some stone stairs so I don't have to mash my jump key like a spasdic monkey, but don't know WTF else to use my stone for. I have an island that I terraformed a bit and planted some trees on. Not all of them grew, so I misunderstood the light/spacing needs on the Tree Farm article. Oh well. More wood than I need, that's for sure.

I haven't bothered to make a bed, since my house is near my spawn. I'd love to build a tower, but delving is consuming me. I'm at the gather mats, make tools to gather more mats, ... ? phase, I guess.

[razul]

A mob grinder is not too hard to build. mostly just stone, water, and 8 blocks of lava. I put a quick guild on how to build one on page 6 or so 5. In addition, we built one on the server if you need a guide.

edit: corrected page

[Treck]

I'm at the gather mats, make tools to gather more mats, ... ? phase, I guess.

Considering the nature of the game, you never really leave that phase.
If you "farm" for a few hours you might end up with a lot of diamonds (and iron in the process) to be able to pretty much do anything without really gathering any more mats than those you allready have, but at some point your gonna run out of something, and you have to gather mats to make tools to gather more mats.

Also, i wouldnt use stone axes/shovels, if you actually go down and farm some diamonds, you will get a lot of iron in the process.
Stone is not only slow, but it also doesnt last long, so you have to run with multiple of them, and they take a lot more time going through special blocks compared to iron.
Imo theres not really a whole lot you can use your diamonds to other than pickaxe/sword/shovel. I dont like running with a diamond sword, but thats mainly since i dont run around hunting a lot, so an iron sword last a good while for me.
I make a diamond shovel if i know i got a lot of dirt to remove, but otherwise usually run with iron shovel. I try not running with more than one of any tool.
Pretty much all the time i run with a diamond pickaxe, mainly since its fastest gathering a few things, while its the same speed on normal stone as an iron pickaxe iirc, redstone is a big differance, not to mention Obsidian. So to not having to run with 2 swapping, i just run with a diamond one, it lasts a good while anyway.

[Dane]

ok, here's a noob question...

I'm building in a mountain RIGHT off the ocean. I decided to build a little outlying building in the sand. I dug down two blocks, and started building my foundation out of glass, up to sea level. I also dug a "moat" surrounding my foundation by one square on all sides.

That done...I decided to fill the moat. I learned that stone slabs, when placed on the bottom of a overhanging material, obey some very strange rules...and look like there was plenty of room to allow water to flow between them, and the block above them. Perfect for an unseen aquaduct to allow my moat to fill, right?

Not so much...I guess the "empty space" is just appearance, and they still behave like a solid block. So, I dug out under them...and water flowed in, but it didn't fill the moat...just intruded a couple of spaces. So...I built a bucket, and started bailing by hand....so, now I've got water in the moat, but only one square high, not two.

Is there any way to accomplish what I'm looking to do?!?

[bldavis]

the source blocks for the water will only spread for 7 blocks so you will have to bucket the water in.

[Dane]

the source blocks for the water will only spread for 7 blocks so you will have to bucket the water in.

Did that, but it's only going 1 tile deep, instead of the desired two, no matter how much bucketing I do...

I'm guessing my desired plan is just not feasible. I'm SO cancelling...Blizzard totally ruined everything about this.

Whoa...sorry, knee-jerk reaction.

At least I don't have to worry about a seawall breach flooding my whole mine...

[razul]

water is kind of hard to manipuate. Your best bet is filling from the top. Make the moat one deep and keep adding water until all the currents are gone. Then dig down from there.

[Kelaan]

Also, i wouldnt use stone axes/shovels, if you actually go down and farm some diamonds, you will get a lot of iron in the process.

Pretty much all the time i run with a diamond pickaxe, mainly since its fastest gathering a few things, while its the same speed on normal stone as an iron pickaxe iirc, redstone is a big differance, not to mention Obsidian. So to not having to run with 2 swapping, i just run with a diamond one, it lasts a good while anyway.

I'm a long way from Diamond, I think. I'd have to go down Many Many Many levels, and then also excavate enough of my chunk to be likely to find it. (: Similarly, I've not encountered any lava yet. Once I do, I can make a mob grinder.

[Treck]

Its all about just taking time to "farm" instead of gathering some mats casually.
Get a few iron pickaxes, lots of torches, and a shovel or 2, and just start digging.
Just dig down diagonally and start tunneling at level 5-16. (its not a bad thing to bring a furnace, some wood, crafting table and chests, if you wanna be there a while without having to go up and down all the time)
The most efficient way iirc is to make a lot of paralell hallways, 3 blocks between eachother, that way you have the optimal ammount of things to bump into, while at the same time the lowest ammount of blocks to pile through.
It took me a while to find lava aswell, but its not ofthen you find lava at high altitudes, you need to get far down most of the time.
Once you find diamond, make a diamond pickaxe and keep tunneling.
On average i usually find about 3-4 diamond deposits in one pickaxe.

And diamond is the next step after iron, since gold is crap for everything but booster rails.

[Guldylohx]

With how much gold it takes to make booster rails, I'm going to stick with the old minecart boosters.

[Treck]

6gold for 6 booster rails.
So while its not "cheap" theres not anything else to use the gold for, so might aswell use it on rails.

[Invisusira]

You'll need a power rail every ~30 pieces of straight and level track, and every OTHER piece of track if it's on a slope. (And if you have a really twisty track, you'll need more there, too.) I just finished converting my entire rail system to power rails on my main SMP server; it took quite a lot of gold (over 300-400 bars)!


However, it's worth it. The new system is MUCH more reliable and foolproof. And the best part? Launchers are a snap.

A block behind power rail with a button is all you need. Put the minecart next to the block, hit the button, and away you go! You can use anywhere from 1-4 power rails. Some people say you need 4 in a row to get the cart going full speed, but 2 has always done the trick for me.